Government promotion yet to meet producers' needs
Government promotion yet to meet producers' needs
The government has a lot of plans on economic development, especially on promotion projects for the production and processing sectors, however their implementation has yet to involve the real producers.
Currently the ministries have their own plans and also are implementing each production promotion project to help the producers prepare for the Asean Economic Community (AEC) which comes into being in 2015.
“However our regret is that implementation of the promotions has not yet included the real producer groups,” the Industry and Commerce Minister, Dr Nam Vinhaket, said.
“For example, currently we are engaged in promoting livestock breeding, including pigs, cattle and chickens. But the reality is that we have only the policy, we do not have the funds to support them and we cannot provide low interest loans either,” Dr Nam said at a press conference recently after coming back from the 20th Asean Economic Ministers' Retreat from February 26-27 in Singapore.
“On a technical issue, we have not been able to bring them the new science and technology associated with animal husbandry nor the new species of livestock and plants,” he said.
“We only have advertisements, but the actual implementation has not been possible. So the outcome so far has fallen short of being satisfactory.”
“So the reality is that the producers still face lots of difficulty”.
“Now we are discussing with related sectors to take more responsibility.”
As an example he suggested that these related sectors should pay more attention to helping the producers, showing them how to save on production cost thereby earning more profit, and also by providing them with good crop and livestock species to satisfy market demand.
“We have to protect their production and ensure they can compete in the local and Asean markets and make sure their products command a better price,” he said.
The Ministry of Industry and Commerce's Trade and Promotion Department has a close cooperation with local producers helping them with new techniques or ideas on production and packaging improvements, especially the ‘One District, One Product' (ODOP) project which it is implementing in Vientiane and some provinces now.
The ODOP project is to promote what they can produce to become a better quality of product in greater volumes to provide more buyer options.
Lao ODOPs have been displayed overseas, including countries in Asia such as China, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. Many foreign buyers are interested in these products because they are organic. The organic label is the outstanding feature of Lao products.
The AEC will transform Asean into a region with a free flow of goods, services, investment, skilled labour and capital.
In the AEC Blueprint, the Asean member states have agreed to reduce tariffs, improve frameworks for trade, better enforce compliance with standards and progressively open up national service sectors to cross-border supply and foreign investment.
vientiane times
